Intentional Living in the Second Half

FIGHTING WORDS

By Lisa Huddleston

I’ve been under a cloud of smothering, cottony grayness, and it’s time to either force my way out or just give up and breathe it in. Usually my best hope for escape is to write my way out, but without the right words I’m not sure I can muster up the energy. The only words I have today are weary and lonely and useless … not fighting words, not cloud-piercing words. I need words like purpose or creativity or community, but I can’t find them in my heart, and I can’t find the energy to stir them up.

I know I should do something. I should warp my loom. I’ve had lots of scrap yarn that I know would look pretty mixed together in a bohemian scarf, but it takes effort, and I am afraid to try. So many projects have not turned out as I imagined them.

I’ve also had good intentions to use my triangle loom to weave a bag. I can see it in my head, but I can’t seem to will it into my hands. It would be easier than warping the rigid heddle loom, and it may help to pull up those active words. But will I do it? Can I?

Even cleaning the house would be a stab at the cloud. But what a boring, repetitive task that is. I will clean the bathrooms and run the vacuum today because I must. But that may be the end of my efforts.

Somehow just writing these paragraphs, setting these pitiful thoughts into letters and words and sentences compels me to act. Knowing that someone may read them and know how lame I am makes me feel obligated to move. And that is a good thing, I guess. Even without the right fighting words.

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4 thoughts on “FIGHTING WORDS”

When I have days like this I find solace in accomplishing the things that rest my soul. I read, I sit in the sunshine and wait for it to warm my core, we snuggle. I give myself permission to have a hard time for a time. And tomorrow we try again, thankful that each day brings new mercies. I will be praying for you my friend from far away.

I join you in your lamosity…for a time, as you said. I think how i’d advise a friend and then try to apply it. Sometimes it’s good to go with it, sometimes not, that’s where I need wisdom. Thankful for His leading, and for writers like you.